Take Advantage of Discounted Shipping and Reward Points Allocation.

If you have been planning to take some of your cards in-hand, the planets are aligned in your favor right now. You just received reward points for 2007 Football and the A&G Superbowl Champs and there are still five days left (until March 3rd) to get a discount on having cards shipped in bulk. ($35.99 for 50 cards, $64.99 for 100 cards, $129.99 for 200 cards, and $189.99 for 300 cards.)

If you want to take out more than 50 but less than 100, you can always make two orders: one with the discounted shipping and one with your reward points.

If you never ordered a card to be taken out of your online portfolio to be shipped to your home, it's quite simple. On the etopps homepage, after logging into your account, place your mouse pointer over the "My Etopps" header. A menu drops down and click on "My Portfolio." A side menu will appear and click "Take Delivery." This will take you to the Delivery Order page in which you can choose which cards in your portfolio based on the pull-down menu for sport and year.

When you get to the shipping page, make sure you have the correct address. Since etopps uses UPS (Ground or Next Day Air), make sure you are not using a P.O. Box number for a street address. UPS Ground costs a wincing $6.95 (7 reward points) for the first card and .85 for each additional card while UPS Next Day is $15.95 for the first card and $1 for each additional card. If you live in the same UPS zone as their fulfillment center (Delaware), there's no reason to order UPS Next Day since it takes the same amount of time as UPS Ground. Since I live in NJ, I usually receive my cards within a day or two depending on when the order is shipped out of their storage facility.

When checking out, you will have the option of using either reward points or paying with the credit card you have on file. If you do not have enough reward points (1 point for every $1), you cannot pay for part of your order with the points and the remaining balance with your credit card. (This is on my etopps wish list)

If you are just taking less than four cards that are not more than $30 in value, you have the option of getting the cards shipped by USPS. The cost is $4.25 for the first card and .70 for the second and the third card. So three cards will cost you just $5.65 (or 6 reward points) which is less than one card using UPS Ground(!)

When selecting UPS you also have the choice of getting signature confirmation as you go through checkout.

If you are lucky enough to live near a Topps Home Team Advantage preferred etopps store, shipping is only .65 per card.

On another note, don't forget to vote: I created a poll about where to have this summer's econ. Voting ends tomorrow evening.